Canada’s privacy commissioner launches new Facebook probe

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has launched another investigation into Facebook’s privacy policies following a complaint by a Facebook member that new settings installed in December made his information more available than before.

“The individual’s complaint mirrors some of the concerns that our office has heard and expressed to Facebook in recent months,” Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a press release.

“Some Facebook users are disappointed by certain changes being made to the site, changes that were supposed to strengthen their privacy and the protection of their personal information,” Denham said.

In response, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the Palo Alto company had not seen the latest complaint, “but we are confident that the transition process begun more than a month ago was transparent, consistent with user expectations and within the law.”

Last July, Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddard released the findings of a previous investigation and said Facebook needed to more clearly explain how the company handles the personal information of its members. Stoddard also recommended that Facebook give members better privacy controls.

In mid-December, Facebook revised its privacy settings and required all of the social network firm’s 350 million active members to review their settings. The changes included a way to control who could see individual status updates, although critics complained some profile information could no longer be concealed.

The commissioner’s office said it would investigate the new complaint and continue to follow up on the first investigation.

Schnitt said the December privacy changes and education campaign included a preview for the privacy commissioner’s office.

“Any recommended changes to a user’s privacy settings were clearly shown to the user repeatedly and were not implemented until the user accepted these changes,” Schnitt said. “In addition, users were required to review the final settings after any changes and pointed to where they could reverse or further customize their settings.”